Hengyi prepares to start trial runs at Brunei crude oil refinery

MOSCOW (MRC) -- China’s Zhejiang Hengyi Group has started preparations for trial runs at its oil refinery in Brunei after importing its first crude cargo for the plant last week, a company spokesperson said, as per Reuters.

The company imported 80,000 tons (584,000 barrels) of Seria Light crude that arrived at the Pulau Muara Besar Terminal on May 2, she said. Hengyi’s refinery has a nameplate capacity of 160,000 barrels per day. Xinhua News reported the trial runs on Friday.

Hengyi has also purchased Zafiro crude from West African, which will arrive in June.

As MRC informed earlier, in April 2012, Zhejiang Hengyi signed a land lease agreement with the Brunei Economic Development Board (BEDB) for its Integrated Refinery and Aromatics Cracker Project in Brunei Darussalam. The China Zhejiang Hengyi (Brunei) PMB Petrochemical Project at Pulau Muara Besar (PMB), Indonesia, is the largest investment project for a privately-owned Chinese company overseas.

Zhejiang Hengyi Group Co., Ltd manufactures and distributes chemical fiber products. The Company produces purified terephthalic acid fibers, polyester spinning fibers, and more. Zhejiang Hengyi Group also operates investment businesses.

MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The US Department of Energy has given the US Environmental Protection Agency its scoring results for the 40 outstanding 2018 applications made by small refineries for waivers from biofuel laws, reported Reuters with reference to sources.

The recommendations from the Energy Department are a crucial step in the EPA’s process for weighing the exemption requests, which can save refineries millions of dollars in regulatory costs and have become the center of a bitter dispute between the rival oil and corn industries.

The US Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is designed to help American farmers by requiring oil refiners to blend certain volumes of biofuels into their fuel each year or purchase credits from those that do. But small refineries with a production capacity of 75,000 barrels per day or less can secure waivers if they prove that compliance would cause them financial harm.

Under President Donald Trump, the EPA has vastly expanded the number of waivers granted to refineries, angering Midwest farmers and their legislative backers who say the policy destroys demand for corn-based ethanol and other biofuels at a time they are already struggling.

For 2017, the EPA granted 35 exemptions to small refineries, without denying any applications, up from seven exemptions issued in the last year of the Obama administration, according to EPA data. That reduced the costs of credits that some refiners such as Valero Energy Corp, PBF Energy Inc and HollyFrontier Corp must buy in order to comply with the RFS, saving them hundreds of millions of dollars.

For 2018, there are a total of 40 petitions pending to obtain a small refinery waiver. Traders and market participants have been awaiting the decisions for months now.

"No decisions regarding 2018 SREs have been made," Michael Abboud, a spokesman for the EPA said. "Many aspects of the decisions for exempting individual refineries are based on confidential business information."

As MRC wrote before, in November 2018, The US Environmental Protection Agency lifted its annual blending mandate for advanced biofuels by 15 percent for 2019, while keeping steady the requirement for conventional biofuels like corn-based ethanol.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Clean Russian oil should reach the Czech Republic around May 20-22, about a week later than first expected, reported Reuters with reference to the head of the country’s state reserves, who made statement to Czech Television.

Pavel Svagr told the state broadcaster an original date of May 15 would not be met and that another shift could happen if quality checks were not met.

Poland, Germany, Ukraine, Slovakia and other countries halted Russian oil imports via the pipeline in late April after finding contaminants that can damage refinery equipment.

Czech refiner Unipetrol, part of Polish group PKN Orlen, was granted access to state reserves at the end of April.

As MRC informed previously, last week, the Russian energy ministry said that clean Russian crude oil meeting all quality requirements had arrived at the Mozyr refinery in Belarus, after contaminated crude led it to halt flows in the pipeline a week earlier. Belarus state oil company Belneftekhim said it had started receiving new supplies of Russian oil at its pipeline service station and was planning to start refining it on May 6.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Kazanorgsintez (part of TAIF Group) has begun a gradual restart of its low density polyethylene (LDPE) production capacities after shutdown for a scheduled turnaround, according to ICIS-MRC Price Report.

The plant's representatives said consecutive works on resuming operations at Kazanorgsintez's 3rd LDPE line began on 5 May. The full shutdown of this LDPE line was carried out on 12 April, and the full capacity utilisation was expected to be reached by the end of last week. The third line's production capacity is 140,000 tonnes/year.

It is also worth noting that next shutdowns for maintenance at Russian LDPE plants are scheduled for July. Thus, Angarsk Polymers Plant and Gazprom neftekhim Salavat will take off-stream their production capacities for turnarounds.

PJSC "Kazanorgsintez" (part of TAIF Group) is one of Russia's largest plants. Kazanorgsintez produces 40% of overall Russian polyethylene (PE) and is the country's largest exporter. To date, the plant produces PE, polycarbonate (PC), PE pipes, phenol, acetone, bisphenol A. Kazanorgsintez is Russia's only PC producer. It manufactures a total of 170 items of products. Kazanorgsintez's annual output is 1.6 million tonnes. The plant is Russia's largest producer of high density polyethylene (HDPE). The plant's annual HDPE production capacity is 540,000 tonnes and its annual LDPE capacity is 225,000 tonnes.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed increasing the volume of biofuels refiners must blend into their fuel annually to 20.04 billion gallons in 2020, from 19.92 billion gallons in 2019, sources said, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The proposed mandate, now under review by other government agencies before being finalized, includes 15 billion gallons of conventional biofuels like ethanol, unchanged from 2019. It also includes 5.04 billion gallons of advanced biofuels, like those made from agricultural wastes, up from 4.92 billion in 2019, the sources said.

The EPA is charged with setting biofuel blending requirements for the refining industry as part of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), a more than decade-old regulation that is aimed at helping farmers and reducing U.S. dependence on oil.

The policy has helped farmers by creating a huge market for ethanol and other biofuels, but oil refiners say compliance can cost a fortune.

EPA spokesman Michael Abboud confirmed the agency submitted a proposal for review but did not comment on its contents.

“The proposal is currently under interagency review, which places the Trump administration on track to release the Renewable Fuel Standard Renewable Volume Obligations (RVOs) on time for the third consecutive year,” he said.

As part of the advanced biofuel proposal, the agency set mandates for cellulosic fuel at 540 million gallons and non-cellulosic at 4.5 billion, according to the sources.

It also proposed a biodiesel mandate of 2.43 billion gallons for 2021, unchanged from 2020, they said. The EPA sets biodiesel mandates a year in advance.

Small refineries can be exempted from biofuel blending if they prove that complying would cause them financial strain, and the Trump administration made extensive use of such exemptions in the last two years.

That has saved refiners money but angered the corn lobby, which argues the practice erodes biofuel demand.
MRC